Chapter 21 Oakley
Oakley
When the first day of school came back around, Oakley sent her girls off with a heavy heart.
It wasn’t so bad when they were little. Hayden’s kindergarten days gave her time with friends while Harper had one-on-one time with Mama.
Then they were both in school, which was a great opportunity for Oakley to establish herself in a new career; she taught Pilates part time and then spent every afternoon and bedtime and weekend with her daughters.
Then somehow, slowly, year by year, their schedule had become a bloated mess. All of their time outside of school was crowded with homework and extracurriculars and classmates’ birthday parties. At times it felt as though she had been demoted from mother to chauffeur.
This year, she was determined to reclaim some of those hours. The girls agreed to take a break from soccer that year, and weekends would be dedicated to family time.
That first Friday after school, they drove straight down to Pualena for a weekend with the family. The spare rooms were all booked, so the kids would pile into grandma’s room for a sleepover, and Oakley would bunk with Anne.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” she asked Trent for the upteenth time that week.
“I’m good here.” He shot her a smile from behind his computer. “Thanks anyway.”
“The girls would love it.”
“They already know that I’m not coming.”
“You could come with me to school pickup and surprise them.”
“They don’t care if I go. They just want to run around with their cousins.”
“Well, but that would give us some time together.”
“You’ll be busy with Anne.”
“I don’t have to be. We could go somewhere just you and me. We could bring our tent and camp out in the woods!”
“Why would I want to sleep in a tent when we have a perfectly good bed?”
“It’s actually a super comfy place to sleep. The pine needles are like two feet thick, so it feels like sleeping on a plush mattress. My sisters and I used to camp there all the time when we were in high school.”
“Then maybe your sisters will camp there with you this time.”
Oakley stared at him. “Don’t you want a break from the office?”
“I like my office.” His tone had lost its warmth and taken on an edge of irritation.
“I know, but you never leave it anymore.”
“I leave it three times a month! I travel plenty. Don’t give me a hard time for wanting to be home when I’m home.”
“What happened to that intrepid adventurer who was always up for a camping trip?”
“Your mom’s backyard isn’t exactly hiking through the Himalayas.”
She ground her teeth together. The volcanic cliffs and sweeping Pacific vistas of her childhood were no less spectacular than any place they had visited in their many years of travel.
But she didn’t want to argue anymore. She hadn’t wanted to argue in the first place, but it seemed like every invitation turned into an argument these days.
She was pushing too hard. He worked so many hours that he wanted to rest when he wasn’t working. That was understandable.
“Okay,” she said at last. “We’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Oakley tried to let go of her resentment as she tossed their bags into the car. She wanted him to want to spend time with them, but it had been nothing but a struggle for years now.
Like the rest of what felt off in her life, she had hardly noticed it until things reached a breaking point.
Outside the elementary school, she greeted her girls with hugs and then handed them snacks once they were buckled into the back seat. Then they drove south towards Pualena.
With each beautiful mile, Oakley’s soul felt lighter. She loved Hawaii with her whole heart. Anytime she started feeling grumpy, all she had to do was get outside and let the beauty of the island wash her worries away.
Focusing on day to day stressors was so myopic, she remembered as they breezed down the coastal road. She had so much to be thankful for.
Oakley breathed deep and counted her blessings.
Her daughters were thriving.
She had her health.
Her husband worked hard to pay their mortgage and send their daughters to private school.
They lived in the most beautiful place in the world.
Her family was less than two hours away, and the drive down was incredibly gorgeous.
What did she have to be grumpy about, anyway?
By the time they pulled up to grandma’s house, her spirits were high.
Pete greeted them in the driveway wearing his bathing suit.
“Are we going to the beach?” Harper asked, hopping out of the car.
“We’re going in the pool!” Pete said.
“What pool?” Hayden demanded.
“That pool!” He pointed to the squat metal silo that stood next to the house.
Oakley frowned in confusion. “Pete, that’s a catchment tank.”
“We’re going swimming in the catchment tank!”
“I don’t believe you,” said Hayden.
“Grandma!” He turned and shouted to Dawn. “Tell them!”
“We’re cleaning the catchment tank.” She grinned at her grandkids as she walked down the front steps and stepped around them to give Oakley a hug. “Hi, sweetheart. How was the drive?”
“It was fine. Do you need a hand with the tank?”
“Pete’s going to help me. Aren’t you, Pete?”
“Yes!” He turned back to his cousins. “And we get to go inside!”
“Seriously?” Oakley asked.
Dawn shrugged. “Why not? I have to shock it with chlorine afterwards anyhow.”
Oakley wrinkled her nose and made a mental note to buy mineral water for her kids. Dawn saw her face and laughed.
“You grew up drinking it,” she said, reading Oakley’s mind, “and you turned out just fine.”
There was no city water in Pualena, nothing anywhere nearby for residents to hook up to. Instead, every household had its own tank. Rainwater collected on the roof and spilled into the catchment system, providing water for the house.
Luckily for Anne and her business endeavors, their dad had installed a massive steel tank years before; it held twenty thousand gallons of rainwater. Even the ‘ohana unit had its own little poly tank that they used to water the plants.
“Grandma,” Harper said, grabbing Dawn’s hand, “can we help?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Your bathing suits are in your bags,” Oakley told them. “Take them up to Grandma’s room and change.”
“Yes!” Harper sprinted to the car to grab her bag.
“We’re really going swimming in the catchment tank?” Hayden asked.
“Are you going to help me get all the leaves and gunk out?” Dawn asked.
“Um… I guess so?”
“Then go ahead and get changed.”
“Are you sure about this?” Oakley asked.
“They’re excited, and it’s a bear of a task to manage on my own. Your dad used to clean it out every couple of months. I let it go too long.”
“I’ll help.”
“You can help me take the cover on and off. Aside from that, me and the kids can manage it.”
Once the top was off, they hooked a ladder onto the side and let the kids climb up and over. Standing on the ladder, Dawn let them splash around for a minute before directing them to start collecting leaves and other debris that had worked its way in from the roof.
Oakley left them to it.
Anne was waiting on the back porch with a pitcher of ginger lemonade.
“How’s business?” Oakley asked, sitting down next to her.
“Busy.” Anne’s smile was tired, but genuine.
“You look good.”
“I feel good.” Anne poured her a glass of lemonade. “How are you?”
“Great!” Oakley chirped. “Just another day in paradise.”
Anne gave her the side-eye but refrained from commenting.
“Hey Mom!” Pete shouted, peering at them from over the side of the catchment tank.
“What’s up?” she called back.
“We’re making a vacuum!”
“It’s not a vacuum!” Hayden popped up next to him. “It’s a siphon.”
“You’re both right,” Dawn said patiently. “We’re making a siphon-powered vacuum to get all that gunk at the bottom. Here, you take this end.”
Oakley stood and peered at the tank, wondering where Harper was.
“I promise you,” Anne said wryly, “Mom didn’t let her drown.”
“I know that,” she grumbled. But she didn’t quite relax until she heard Harper’s voice coming from the tank. “I can’t believe she’s letting them use it as a pool.”
“It’s basically an above-ground swimming pool. Look at it.”
“That’s your drinking water.”
Anne shrugged. “It goes through a filter.”
“Right. I’m sure that’ll be a huge comfort to your guests tomorrow morning when you tell them that their coffee was made with pool water.”
“Just like your lemonade.”
Oakley did a spit-take, and Anne cackled with laughter.
They kicked back on the porch and let Dawn direct her grandkids.
“She seems better,” Oakley said after a while.
“More like herself,” Anne agreed.
“I miss him so much,” she said as a sudden wave of grief washed over her. “I miss his voice and his laugh and the way everybody seemed to get along when he was around.”
“It feels weird. Finding any kind of normal with Dad gone.”
“Yeah. It does.”
Anne squeezed her hand.
“This was always his job,” Oakley said, looking over at Dawn.
Anne nodded. “I should have tackled it before now. But it never even occurred to me. I just… forgot it was something that needed to happen.”
“He carried so much. Ugh.” Oakley pressed her hands to her eyes, frustrated by the sudden burn of tears. It had taken her completely off guard.
“I know.” Anne rubbed a hand up and down her back. “I miss him too. Every day.”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Dawn shouted after a while. “Good job! Pull the vacuum up so we don’t keep losing water. There you go! Great! Okay, who wants to dump in the baking soda?”
With great reluctance, the kids clambered out of the catchment tank and down the ladder. Annie Oakley wrapped them in beach towels while Grandma poured bleach into their drinking water.
“There has to be a better way to do that,” Oakley muttered.
“We turned out alright,” Anne said with a shrug.
“You sound just like Mom.”
Anne gasped theatrically. “Rude.”
“Now for the hard part,” Dawn announced from her place at the top of the ladder.
“What’s the hard part?” Pete asked.
“Getting this dang cover back on.”
The three adults worked for a solid ten minutes trying to get the massive cover back onto the tank, but they didn’t manage it until Zoe and Noah arrived and gave them a hand.
When they were done, Zoe retreated into her little backyard hut. Anne and Noah wandered off into the ironwood forest. The freshly-showered kids piled onto Grandma’s bed for a movie. That left just Oakley and Dawn.
Unless she volunteered to tag along on some errand or another, Oakley rarely got any one-on-one time with her mom.
It had always been that way. Now, sitting on the back porch, it felt strange not to be doing something.
When she was a kid, Tutu Kalama was always shelling peas or sewing clothes or doing something with her hands. Now she understood why.
Oakley didn’t like to sit idle. That was how worries crept in.
“How are you?” Dawn asked suddenly.
“Fine,” she said automatically.
“You always say that.” Her mom’s smile was half affection, half exasperation.
“I have an amazing life. What would I have to complain about?”
Dawn was silent for a moment. “How’s Trent?”
“Fine! Good. Working hard, like always.”
“You know, I haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“No! That can’t be right. Didn’t he come for Christmas?”
“Not since the year before last.”
“That’s right. He was slammed with work last Christmas. We just had a cozy morning with the girls, and then he stayed to work when I brought them down here for dinner. He’s just busy. You know how it goes.”
“Oakley, he didn’t even come to the memorial service.”
She flinched.
“Are you two okay?”
“We– I– You know how it is.”
Dawn’s focus was intense. “I don’t know that I do.”
“Marriage is hard, right?” Oakley kept her voice light.
Her mom looked at her with something approaching pity. “Mine wasn’t.”
“Not ever?” she scoffed. “Come on. Everyone has their struggles, Mom. Life is hard. It’s not a betrayal to admit that.”
“Life is hard sometimes,” Dawn acknowledged, speaking slowly. “But your partner should help you carry all of that. Your husband should be your biggest supporter. Your refuge from the world. He shouldn’t be just one more thing for you to carry.”
“Trent does a lot for us.”
“Okay.”
“He does!”
“I said okay.”
Oakley ground her teeth together, staring out at the water.
“I’m going to check on the kids.” Dawn patted her shoulder gently and then went inside.
Oakley sat there for another moment, stewing.
Then she got up, shook it off, and went to find something useful to do.